Affordable housing for Bay Shore

The Town of Islip will hold a hearing next week on a change of zone to build affordable housing on a vacant site once slated to become an aquarium in Bay Shore.
Owned by the Islip Community Development Agency, the 2.5-acre property, now zoned for business, has languished for 10 years. But the town has partnered with ...

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When are the taxpayers going to wake up. This immoral redistribution of wealth is part of the reason for the high cost of Long Island living. These “Housing Projects” are pure socialism.

It has been determined that 3 hours of every working day go to paying taxes. Part of the reason for this are socialistic programs like these.

A primary objective of the CDA: “To assist low and moderate income residents of the Town of Islip through housing and public service programs”

“The traditional funding source for the Agency since its inception has been the Community Development Block Grant Program, from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). This is an entitlement grant currently in the range of $2,100,000 per year.”

Suffolk County Executive Steve Levy recently presented a scaled-down version of his Downstate Suburban Workforce Housing for Economic Sustainability Act. The new bill focuses just on Nassau and Suffolk counties and calls for $25 million in state funds over five years.

Levy’s bill proposes setting housing goals for each community. It also seeks town and village voluntary cooperation through financial incentives for building affordable housing; including aid for school districts if they are impacted with extra students. Officials said the program could be funded through the $400 million for housing already included in the state budget.

Workforce housing is not a new idea, just the politically correct name of the moment. History clearly shows us many reasons why these projects and programs are long-term losers. But there is an even bigger reason why Levy’s plan should not be approved. That is, it is a social welfare project, plain and simple.

And it wouldn’t matter if it’s state funds, county funds or even county-owned land. Using taxpayer dollars to aid any one particular social class over another amounts to an immoral redistribution of wealth. Even though Levy’s workforce housing plan is being promoted for a “good” cause, is it moral for any governmental entity to levy excessive taxes on one group of citizens for the benefit of another group of citizens? Is Mr. Levy exercising compassion by giving away other people’s money stolen through confiscatory taxation? Is it his money to give? This workforce housing initiative funded with public money is a modern day form of socialism. In this overtaxed and overregulated county and state, it is time to say enough is enough.

For the past 20 years, retirees have also been leaving in droves. Why isn’t anyone trying to keep them from leaving? Retirees have been leaving all along for the same reason that young adults are leaving: because it’s a very expensive place to live. And you can’t build affordable homes in a very expensive place to live. You can’t retire in a very expensive place to live. You can’t live in a very expensive place to live.

We are all in agreement that there is an affordable housing crisis on Long Island. However the answer does not lie in any socialist form of governmental funding.

“Government is not a solution to our problem, government is the problem,” so said Ronald Reagan.

Unfortunately, Suffolk County Executive Steve Levy is looking for government to solve the affordable housing problem on Long Island. That’s a problem. Government can’t be relied upon to solve affordable housing problems. And the more Mr. Levy communicates his plan, the more it eerily sounds like social housing or public housing.

Several months ago, Levy cited many examples of “aesthetically pleasing” workforce housing communities across Long Island and even the nation. That should be another alarm bell. Students of history remember that in the 1930s, a famous French architect named Le Corbusier inspired ways to house large numbers of people in response to the urban housing crisis of that era. Le Corbusiers’ aesthetically pleasing modern architecture and his urban planning were NYC’s public housing inspiration. He believed that his solution would raise the quality of life of the lower classes. But by the 1960s, this style of housing was predominantly of the poor. His “housing projects” had become crime ridden.

In spite of all the governmental efforts to clean up their own creations, these projects and programs continue to have a reputation for attracting violence, drug use and prostitution. Like Levy’s workforce housing plan, NYC’s public housing was also initially for the working class. Levy’s use of public money to help create private housing is just another offshoot of this proven bad program. History clearly shows us the long-term results of these projects and programs. Why would Levy’s plan be any different than Le Corbusiers? Workforce housing, social housing, public housing, housing projects, section 8 programs or whatever the politically correct name of the moment, are simply poverty traps.

How is workforce housing a poverty trap? While the rest of homeowners build equity and wealth through home ownership, a “workforce” homeowner will not. Nothing good economically can come out of a home with a “workforce” sticker. Each “workforce” house will forever so be labeled. Those that buy in will eventually get sucked into the black hole of governmental dependence. It’s a form of social welfare. They will be pulled further away from prosperity. Highly dense pockets of poverty will be created. The cycle continues.

What is really scary is Levy’s plan for the number and sizes of these workforce communities. I will argue that in 20 years, Levy’s plan will be considered the birth of ghettos and the lower class urbanization of Suffolk County. Please, Steve Levy, not in our county.

Government-sponsored housing is not the solution. Neither is telling young people where they should live. So if Levy wants to keep the brightest young people from leaving Long Island he should listen carefully to Middle Island resident Andrea Todd who recently stated, “Everyone’s always speaking for younger people, but they’re wrong. The more the county wants to build this kind of housing, the more younger people want to move out of Suffolk County.”